Big Wind looking for federal handout.

The wind ‘industry’ is apparently looking for more federal aid – actually, no, there’s nothing apparent about it.  They want more federal aid, they want it permanently – and they want it specifically allocated to them, and not as part of a nebulous ‘alternate energy’ package.  Otherwise, they’re afraid that they’ll go out of business. For the record: if your business plan requires – not benefits from; requires – an annual bailout from the federal government in order to function, then by definition you have a bad business plan.  Mostly because you are not actually in business; you are a parasite pretending to be a business.  I understand that this point has been obscured since the Democrats took Congress in 2007, but it bears repeating.  A lot of repeating.

Now that we’ve got that lesson in Capitalism 090 out of the way, let’s clear something up.  It may be that the 112th Congress may find it expedient to take into account the Left’s religious sensibilities on ‘green’ power.  If so, however, a basic appreciation of this country’s secular ideals demands that the Left gives up blocking its favorite environmental devil figure.  I refer, of course, to nuclear power generation.  To put it very bluntly: if they want to get the angels of wind farms then they have to enthusiastically support the demons of nuclear power plants.  Note ‘enthusiastically:’ they’re going to have to actively and effectively oppose the antinuke scientific illiterates alongside the rest of us.  Because the USA is not going to reduce the amount of power that we generate every year if we don’t have to, and that is not negotiable.  The more reasonable green types need to accept that reality.

And if they don’t want to do that: well. I guess that they don’t really love Mother Gaia all that much, after all.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

#rsrh ‘Compromise?’ On raising taxes?

I fail to see why the Republicans are obligated to ‘compromise’ on raising taxes.  If the Democrats want to not raise taxes, they already have the votes that they need to do that for another month.  They can do anything that they like, in fact: raise the marginal rates to 60%; create a VAT; and even tax our air, light, thoughts, and dreams for humanity if they can figure out how to meter such things.  What they can’t do is make us agree to give them cover for doing something that we don’t want to do.

Regretting yet that eagerness in 2009 to go tell people “I won,” Democrats?

Admittedly, Ezra Klein sort of knows all of this already.  It’s just that he’s kind of incapable of admitting that something bad can happen in Washington that wasn’t caused by a Republican.  Sort of how recent European history… no, no: that’s a nasty analogy to make.

Moe Lane

Hey, remember ‘liberaltarianism?’

Yeah, turns out that it was Newspeak for ‘libertarians can call themselves what they like, as long as they vote for progressives.’  As soon as the 2010 election results came in that was out, and spitting on libertarians was in.

No, really.

Moe Lane Continue reading Hey, remember ‘liberaltarianism?’

Is the fix in with Rangel?

Bill Alliston asks the question: Ethics Panel to Clear Rangel?

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel predicted, on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers program that aired Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009, that his multitude of ethics woes would soon disappear. “I think that next Tuesday you will see a break in this and as soon as the Ethics Committee organizes they ought to be able to dismiss this,” National Journal’s CongressDaily quoted the Rangel as saying.

If so, it’s hard to imagine that the Select Committee on Ethics will have devoted anything more than a cursory glance at the various issues raised. Consider just one aspect, for which documents are in the public record: Rangel’s financial disclosure forms. We took a look at his filings going all the way back to 1978, the first year members were required to disclose information on their personal finances, and found 28 instances in which he failed to report acquiring, owning or disposing of assets. Assets worth between $239,026 and $831,000 appear or disappear with no disclosure of when they were acquired, how long they were held, or when they were sold, as the operative House rules at the time required.

Read the whole thing, of course. More backup here – and there’s been more since then, of course; of which this is merely one example. And yet, he’s plainly quietly confident… and Speaker Pelosi is just plain quiet. So why is that, anyway?

Mind you, I already know, and I’ll be saying “I told you so” when House Democrats “clear” Rangel.